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Out of curiosity, do you realize that the same thing can be said about religion? You don't know enough about it - definitely not as much as the people who speci

Out of curiosity, do you realize that the same thing can be said about religion? You don't know enough about it - definitely not as much as the people who specialize in it - so you should listen to your priest on the subject. Or politics: just pick a party and follow its lead, politics is a complex subject and you can't know as much as the professionals.

andrepd 11y ago
It definitely is so. What authority do I have to talk about economics or law? Shouldn't I leave that to the people who do know what they are talking about? Kind of a central problem in democracy, if you think about it.
dubya 11y ago
Protestants, at least, have the idea of the "priesthood of all believers", meaning roughly that each person can have authority in doctrinal matters. So you should listen to your priest, but you don't have to accept that he's correct if God is telling you something different. Thus the billion different protestant denominations.
- zaphar 11y ago
  Protestants if you go back to their roots actually expected you to become an expert in scripture in order to recognize when your "priest" is wrong. But they didn't promote anything goes. It's more that you should learn and be able to apply scripture correctly. This didn't prevent the proliferation of denominations because of course different people would interpret a piece of scripture differently and get really worked up about it.
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    This is in contrast with Catholicism, where pretty much everything was conducted in Latin rather than local languages; the emphasis on layperson understanding of theology was a direct response to the trend of most followers having zero understanding or ability to understand the scriptures and sermons they were expected to follow. Of course, this also resulted in the more decentralized power structure relative to Catholicism's. Quite a bit of Protestant philosophy and tendency stems from immediate responses to a perceived-to-be corrupt and exclusive Catholic Church.
richmarr 11y ago
I'm sure you're right, but what domain of knowledge is religion expert in?
savanaly 11y ago
I would say that nutrition falls somewhere between religion - where the facts are all made up - and, say, math or physics where we're pretty damn sure the scientists aren't making all the facts up. But it definitely leans towards the scientific side where real facts can be known and people who devoted decades of their life to it have a tangible advantage over the layman when evaluating claims about it. I respect a theological scholar or priest's mastery of their religion in the same was as I would respect an ardent nerd's mastery of Tolkein's universe, which is to say it is real respect for studying at length a somewhat internally consistent system of mythology. But no matter how much more that nerd knows about mythology I wouldn't trust his word about how Middle Earth actually existed at some point in the earth's history. As for politics...well that's a huge can of worms isn't it? I would mention that it's not a politician's job to know about politics, but it's their job to get elected and accrue power. A better analogy for you to make might have been political scientist, in which case I would indeed trust their judgement over my own gut feel when it comes to questions about politics like why so-and-so won the election.

andrepd 11y ago

It definitely is so. What authority do I have to talk about economics or law? Shouldn't I leave that to the people who do know what they are talking about? Kind of a central problem in democracy, if you think about it.

dubya 11y ago

Protestants, at least, have the idea of the "priesthood of all believers", meaning roughly that each person can have authority in doctrinal matters. So you should listen to your priest, but you don't have to accept that he's correct if God is telling you something different. Thus the billion different protestant denominations.

zaphar 11y ago
Protestants if you go back to their roots actually expected you to become an expert in scripture in order to recognize when your "priest" is wrong. But they didn't promote anything goes. It's more that you should learn and be able to apply scripture correctly. This didn't prevent the proliferation of denominations because of course different people would interpret a piece of scripture differently and get really worked up about it.
- yellowapple 11y ago
  This is in contrast with Catholicism, where pretty much everything was conducted in Latin rather than local languages; the emphasis on layperson understanding of theology was a direct response to the trend of most followers having zero understanding or ability to understand the scriptures and sermons they were expected to follow. Of course, this also resulted in the more decentralized power structure relative to Catholicism's. Quite a bit of Protestant philosophy and tendency stems from immediate responses to a perceived-to-be corrupt and exclusive Catholic Church.

richmarr 11y ago

I'm sure you're right, but what domain of knowledge is religion expert in?

savanaly 11y ago

I would say that nutrition falls somewhere between religion - where the facts are all made up - and, say, math or physics where we're pretty damn sure the scientists aren't making all the facts up. But it definitely leans towards the scientific side where real facts can be known and people who devoted decades of their life to it have a tangible advantage over the layman when evaluating claims about it. I respect a theological scholar or priest's mastery of their religion in the same was as I would respect an ardent nerd's mastery of Tolkein's universe, which is to say it is real respect for studying at length a somewhat internally consistent system of mythology. But no matter how much more that nerd knows about mythology I wouldn't trust his word about how Middle Earth actually existed at some point in the earth's history. As for politics...well that's a huge can of worms isn't it? I would mention that it's not a politician's job to know about politics, but it's their job to get elected and accrue power. A better analogy for you to make might have been political scientist, in which case I would indeed trust their judgement over my own gut feel when it comes to questions about politics like why so-and-so won the election.